Guest Post: Will the cloud come to the rescue for Disaster Recovery?

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy many organizations are realizing how important it is to have a disaster recovery plan in place. An emerging option that IT pros are looking into is cloud-based disaster preparedness solutions. This is a cost-effective, flexible, and secure way to minimize the recovery window.

Disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) replaces huge capital expenditures and personal costs with more manageable operational expenditures and it has value priced tools that help retailers optimize their recovery time.

Here are four ways that DRaaS can keep companies running when the unthinkable happens:

People Power: Have people in place who can implement the Disaster Recovery plan so that the people in the midst of the emergency can focus on other things.

Location, location, location: A DRaaS provider that has facilities in more than one region and offers failover access between facilities can easily get their clients up and running again.

Price protection: DRaaS makes Disaster Recovery accessible to and affordable for almost any organization.

Pop Quiz: Regular testing will ensure that business-critical data will be available when and where it is needed.

Do you think that this is ripe and the cloud will come to the rescue when it comes to disaster recovery – or is this hype?

As Logicalis practice manager for protection services, David Kinlaw’s role is to develop comprehensive best practices and disaster recovery and business continuity solutions that protect Logicalis customers from suffering a significant data loss that could impact or threaten their businesses.

As all organizations today become increasingly dependent on IT, David says his goal is to change how people think of disaster recovery and business continuity. “Too many organizations approach disaster recovery and business continuity as if they were shopping for car insurance. They’re looking for low rates, something they can buy and be done with. Others tend to rely on a vague hope that the IT department will just make it all work…somehow. Our approach to disaster recovery and business continuity is that it has to become an integral and sustainable part of the way an organization does business. It has to become a way of life.”

David says his message supports and enhances what IT departments have been saying for years. In many situations, he finds himself translating IT’s message into terms—and financial justifications—that appeal to C-level business managers. David has the ability to talk technology to the CTO and below and business process to the CIO and above.

David and his team work with organizations to conduct comprehensive assessments of their business continuity requirements and determine the best solution for their unique environment. He has a wide range of technical and business experience working with executive management and technology leaders to clearly define business requirements, obtain organizational commitment, and design solutions that fit business needs and strategic vision.

David draws on a range of technologies in the Logicalis protection services portfolio that make disaster recovery both more affordable and more highly automated than it has been in the past. Logicalis’ disaster recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS) offering, for example, enables Logicalis cloud customers to failover between Logicalis’ two cloud platforms for full redundancy without having to invest in their own remote DR site. Customers who maintain on-premise data centers can also use Logicalis’ DRaaS to failover from their primary site to the Logicalis cloud. New solutions are constantly under development.

Before joining Logicalis David worked as an IT manager in a variety of companies including GMAC Insurance and IBM Global Services. He estimates that about half his nearly 15-year career in IT has been spent on the consulting side and half on the customer side.

David studied Information Technology at East Carolina University. He lives with his wife Sandra and their young daughter in the High Point, NC area. An avid collector of movies, his other hobbies include long range shooting, and flying remote controlled helicopters.

Topics of Expertise

Disaster recovery—on premise and as-a-service

Security and business continuity assessments

Defining business requirements and obtaining organizational commitment for business continuity solutions